Today in the afternoon, two planes of the Russian Federation are expected to arrive at the airport in Sofia to take the expelled 70 diplomats and employees of the Russian embassy and their relatives, BNR reported.

As reported by the MIA correspondent from Sofia, according to unconfirmed information, the total number of Russian citizens who will leave Bulgaria is over 100 people.

Both flights are scheduled for this afternoon.

The outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, announced on June 28 that his country was expelling 70 Russian diplomats and technical staff from the Russian Embassy in Sofia. The staff of the Russian Consulates General in Ruse and Varna are also expelled.

The main argument of the Bulgarian authorities for the declaration of more than 70 Russian diplomats as persona non grata is that they engaged in activities incompatible with their diplomatic status and espionage.

This largest-ever expulsion of Russian diplomats from Bulgaria led to a worsening of relations between the ruling Change Continues party and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, with Kornelia Ninova demanding that the outgoing prime minister step down as prime ministerial candidate in his party's second government.

At the same time, the Russian ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova gave an ultimatum to the Bulgarian Government to leave behind some of the diplomats of her country and threatened that Russia could break diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.